Autotransplantation of parathyroid grafts into the tibialis anterior muscle after parathyroidectomy: a novel autotransplantation site

Background: Surgical management of renal secondary hyperparathyroidism (sHPT) is varying. Total parathyroidectomy with heterotopic autotransplantation (TPTX + AT) is one of the standard surgical procedures in sHPT, but there is no consensus about the optimal site for graft insertion. At the surgical department of the University Hospital of Heidelberg we prefer the autotransplantation into the tibialis anterior muscle. The aim of this study was to assess the long-term function of the auto-transplanted parathyroid tissue in this type of surgical procedure. Methods: The function of the autograft of 42 patients was assessed 8.2 ± 2.5 years after surgery, using a modified Casanova-test of the leg bearing the parathyroid tissue. Ischemic blockage was induced by tourniquet and the levels of parathyroid hormone (PTH) were assessed during the test. Results: At the point of assessment, the ischemic blockage led to a significant reduction in the concentration of PTH (≥50 % of the baseline value) in 19 patients (45 %) indicating well-functioning autografts. In 11 patients (26 %), ischemic blockage did not cause any change in the concentration of PTH (≤20 % of the baseline value), indicating functioning residual parathyroid tissue from another site. The source of PTH production was classified as unidentifiable in five patients (12 %). Two patients had developed graft-dependent recurrent HPT (5 %) without therapeutic consequences and three patients suffered from persistent symptomatic hypoparathyroidism (7 %). Conclusions: These results indicate that TPTX + AT into the tibialis anterior muscle is a successful surgical treatment for renal HPT and that the modified Casanova-test is a suitable diagnostic tool for autografts function

Uniform nomenclature for the protein transport machinery of the mitochondrial membranes

[no abstract avaiable

Efficient v-tensor determination and NH assignment of paramagnetic proteins

Abstract Anisotropic magnetic susceptibility tensors v of paramagnetic metal ions are manifested in pseudocontact shifts, residual dipolar couplings, and other paramagnetic observables that present valuable long-range information for structure determinations of protein-ligand complexes. A program was developed for automatic determination of the v-tensor anisotropy parameters and amide resonance assignments in proteins labeled with paramagnetic metal ions. The program requires knowledge of the three-dimensional structure of the protein, the backbone resonance assignments of the diamagnetic protein, and a pair of 2D 15 N-HSQC or 3D HNCO spectra recorded with and without paramagnetic metal ion. It allows the determination of reliable v-tensor anisotropy parameters from 2D spectra of uniformly 15 N-labeled proteins of fairly high molecular weight. Examples are shown for the 185-residue N-terminal domain of the subunit e from E. coli DNA polymerase III in complex with the subunit h and La 3+ in its diamagnetic and Dy 3+ , Tb 3+ , and Er 3+ in its paramagnetic form. Abbreviations: h -subunit h of E. coli polymerase III; e186 -N-terminal 185 residues of the E. coli polymerase III subunit e; PCS -pseudocontact shift; PRE -paramagnetic relaxation enhancement; RACSresidual anisotropic chemical shifts

Моделирование процесса синтеза в воздушной плазме оксидных композиций для дисперсионного плутоний-ториевого ядерного топлива

Целью работы являлось исследование процесса плазмохимического синтеза наноразмерных оксидных композиций для дисперсионного плутоний-ториевого ядерного топлива из водно-органических нитратных растворов (ВОНР). В результате было показано, что плазменная переработка диспергированных растворов ВОНР в воздушно-плазменном потоке позволяет осуществлять плазмохимический синтез наноразмерных порошков оксидных композиций с высокими физико-химическими и технологическими свойствами.The aim of this paper was to study the process of plasma-chemical synthesis of nanosized oxide compositions for dispersive plutonium-thorium nuclear fuel from water-organic nitrate solutions (WONS). As a result, it was shown that the plasma processing of dispersed WONS solutions in an air-plasma flow allows plasma-chemical synthesis of nanosized powders of oxide compositions with high physical, chemical and technological properties

Meson Cloud of the Nucleon in Polarized Semi-Inclusive Deep-Inelastic Scattering

We investigate the possibility of identifying an explicit pionic component of the nucleon through measurements of polarized $\Delta^{++}$ baryon fragments produced in deep-inelastic leptoproduction off polarized protons, which may help to identify the physical mechanism responsible for the breaking of the Gottfried sum rule. The pion-exchange model predicts highly correlated polarizations of the $\Delta^{++}$ and target proton, in marked contrast with the competing diquark fragmentation process. Measurement of asymmetries in polarized $\Lambda$ production may also reveal the presence of a kaon cloud in the nucleon.Comment: 23 pages REVTeX, 7 uuencoded figures, accepted for publication in Zeit. Phys.

The proofreading exonuclease subunit ε of Escherichia coli DNA polymerase III is tethered to the polymerase subunit α via a flexible linker

Escherichia coli DNA polymerase III holoenzyme is composed of 10 different subunits linked by noncovalent interactions. The polymerase activity resides in the α-subunit. The ε-subunit, which contains the proofreading exonuclease site within its N-terminal 185 residues, binds to α via a segment of 57 additional C-terminal residues, and also to θ, whose function is less well defined. The present study shows that θ greatly enhances the solubility of ε during cell-free synthesis. In addition, synthesis of ε in the presence of θ and α resulted in a soluble ternary complex that could readily be purified and analyzed by NMR spectroscopy. Cell-free synthesis of ε from PCR-amplified DNA coupled with site-directed mutagenesis and selective 15N-labeling provided site-specific assignments of NMR resonances of ε that were confirmed by lanthanide-induced pseudocontact shifts. The data show that the proofreading domain of ε is connected to α via a flexible linker peptide comprising over 20 residues. This distinguishes the α : ε complex from other proofreading polymerases, which have a more rigid multidomain structure